Nawaz Sharif allotted Pakpattan shrine land illegally: JIT report

LAHORE (92 News) – The joint investigation team (JIT), in the report submitted to the SC on Tuesday, held former premier Nawaz Sharif responsible for allotting the Pakpattan shrine land illegally. The court has ordered Nawaz Sharif to submit the reply to the SC within two weeks. While hearing the case, Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar remarked that under which authority the then chief minister allotted the land. “Nawaz Sharif will be in trouble during cross-examination in the trial court,” he remarked. The JIT report stated that shrine custodian Dewan Ghulam Qutab had submitted an application for the allotment of the land. It further stated the Auqaf secretary had directed to implement the order of then chief minister Nawaz Sharif. According to the report, Dewan Ghulam Qutab had sold the land after the allotment. The three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar had formed the JIT to probe the land allotment case. The JIT was headed by National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) chief Khalid Dad Lak, with one member of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) each. The case stem from the day when Nawaz Sharif was the chief minister of Punjab. The charges say that Sharif allotted Auqaf Department’s land around the Pakpattan shrine to Dewan Ghulam Qutab in violation of the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) order. In 2015, the then chief justice Nasirul Mulk, while hearing a matter related to the land dispute, took suo motu notice of the illegal allotment of the land of the shrine of Hazrat Baba Faridud Din Masud Ganj Shakar, in 1985. In October, the top court directed Sharif to submit his reply in the matter of withdrawal of the notification, concerning the Auqaf property attached with the shrine. In response to the court’s order, Sharif stated that he did not recall having ever passed any such order. The bench had termed Sharif’s reply vague and asked him to personally come and explain as to why he had de-notified the notification.